Here’s What Gawker Media Does

It was surprising to hear the news last week that right-wing billionaire investor Peter Thiel has been secretly trying to destroy Gawker Media through proxy lawsuits. It was dispiriting, and less surprising, to hear the conversation that followed the revelation. The discussion begins, in most cases, with the premise that Gawker is bad. Even those who are rightly alarmed at Thiel’s unprecedented attack on an institution that he regards as “terrible for the Valley” usually feel the need to preface that conclusion with some form of “I hate to defend Gawker, but...”

It’s an understandable habit. Gawker Media has not put a lot of effort, over the years, into being likable. We have earned a long list of enemies.

But the notion that Gawker Media—the company, encompassing seven web sites, that Thiel is attempting to permanently silence—is best understood as a platform for spewing hatred, or for bullying, is at odds with our own experience. And we can’t help but conclude it is at odds with a lot of other people’s experience. If our lengthy published record of news, essays, investigations, satire, and criticism is “not journalism,” as the refrain goes, then why has so much of it been cited, amplified, and followed by our more respectable establishment peers? If we aim for nothing but cruelty, or nothing but clicks, why have our writers drawn so many of the finest (or most well-remunerated) writers in the rest of the business to engage with our work?

Journalism is as journalism does. Anyone moved to dismiss the million-plus stories that we have published over the years as nothing more than “gutter journalism” ought to account for the by-no-means-comprehensive sampling of posts below, which we have arranged along with examples of the contemporaneous reaction to, praise for, and impact of the work. There are countless other posts that could join them. This is what Peter Thiel is trying to destroy.

“The Black Lives Matter movement has shed light on the racial profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality experienced by the African-American community across America. But apparently some of the employees at Facebook’s notoriously white, bro-centric Menlo Park, California office don’t agree.”

NBC News:

USA Today:

National Public Radio:

Newsweek:

Facebook Employees Asked Mark Zuckerberg If They Should Try to Stop a Donald Trump Presidency

Image: AP“This week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared to publicly denounce the political positions of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign during the keynote speech of the company’s annual F8 developer conference. “‘I hear fearful voices calling for building walls and distancing people they label as “others,”’ Zuckerberg said, never referring to Trump by name. ‘I hear them calling for blocking free expression, for slowing immigration, for reducing trade, and in some cases, even for cutting access to the internet.’”

New York Post:

Breitbart:

Fox News:

The Atlantic:

The Guardian:

The Hill:

Want to Know What Facebook Really Thinks of Journalists? Here’s What Happened When It Hired Some.

Illustration by Jim Cooke“Depending on whom you ask, Facebook is either the savior or destroyer of journalism in our time. An estimated 600 million people see a news story on Facebook every week, and the social network’s founder Mark Zuckerberg has been transparent about his goal to monopolize digital news distribution. ‘When news is as fast as everything else on Facebook, people will naturally read a lot more news,’ he said in a Q&A last year, adding that he wants Facebook Instant Articles to be the ‘primary news experience people have.’”

Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

Illustration by Jim Cooke“Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network’s influential ‘trending’ news section, according to a former journalist who worked on the project. This individual says that workers prevented stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically trending among the site’s users.”

Drudge Report:

New York Times:

New York Times:

New York Times:

Buzzfeed:

Sail (Far) Away: At Sea with America’s Largest Floating Gathering of Conspiracy Theorists

“‘Once we’re in international waters, every woman on the ship gets to make love to whoever she wants,’ Sean David Morton said, with a wink.”

For Sale: A Video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Smoking Crack Cocaine

“Rob Ford, Toronto’s conservative mayor, is a wild lunatic given to making bizarre racist pronouncements and randomly slapping refrigerator magnets on cars. One reason for this is that he smokes crack cocaine. I know this because I watched him do it, on a videotape. He was fucking hiiiiigh. It’s for sale if you’ve got six figures.”

We Are Raising $200,000 to Buy and Publish the Rob Ford Crack Tape

$90,000 High and Rising: Rob Ford Crackstarter Update

Thank You: The Rob Ford Crackstarter Has Met Its Goal

The Rob Ford Crack Video Might Be “Gone”

A Pipe-Wielding Thug Stormed the Rob Ford Crackhouse, Seeking Video

Here’s Where Your Crackstarter Money Is Going

The Guardian:

Five months later...

New York Times:

The New Yorker:

“In 2013, his fame, long established in Canada, spread to the United States after Gawker, followed closely by the Toronto Star, reported the existence of a video depicting the mayor smoking crack. For six months, Ford denied the allegation, before finally admitting to using the drug “in one of my drunken stupors.”

Family Values Activist Josh Duggar Had a Paid Ashley Madison Account

“In 2013, conservative reality TV star Josh Duggar—of TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting fame—was named the executive director of the Family Research Council, a conservative lobbying group in D.C. which seeks “to champion marriage and family as the foundation of civilization, the seedbed of virtue, and the wellspring of society.” During that time, he also maintained a paid account on Ashley Madison, a web site created for the express purpose of cheating on your spouse.”

The New Yorker:

Talking Points Memo:

The Overwhelming Blackness of Kendrick Lamar’sTo Pimp a Butterfly

“I’ve never felt my blackness more than I have in the past three years. Never been more proud and fearful of what it means. I’ve never had to think so deeply about it than in these past years. Never realized how deeply people see me, nor thought it was possible to feel much blacker.”

New York Times:

How Bill O’Reilly Tried to Get His Wife’s Boyfriend Investigated By the Cops

“Last summer, Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly came to believe that his wife was romantically involved with another man. Not just any man, but a police detective in the Long Island community they call home. So O’Reilly did what any concerned husband would do: He pulled strings to get the police department’s internal affairs unit to investigate one of their own for messing with the wrong man’s lady.”

“We’ve all heard about Billo and Fox Security, but this is ridiculous” — Keith Olbermann, ESPN

Court Transcripts: Bill O’Reilly’s Daughter Saw Him “Choking Her Mom”

Politico:

Mediaite:

Talking Points Memo:

“Maybe Bill O’Reilly could learn something from NBA players about parenting. Wonder what thuggish music he listens to?” — David Zirin, The Nation

Bill O’Reilly Loses Custody of Children In New York Court Ruling

The New York Daily News:

The Independent:

The Wrap:

Remember When Dr. Dre Bashed a Female Journalist’s Face Against a Wall?

“In January of 1991, producer/rapper and then-N.W.A. member Andre ‘Dr. Dre’ Young attacked hip-hop journalist Denise ‘Dee’ Barnes in a nightclub. If you hadn’t heard about the incident going into F. Gary Gray’s N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton, which hits theaters in two weeks, you’d leave the theater none the wiser. It’s never mentioned.”

Here’s What’s Missing From Straight Outta Compton: Me and the Other Women Dr. Dre Beat Up

“I never experienced police harassment until I moved to California in the ‘80s. The first time it happened, I had just left a house party that erupted in gunfire. A cop pulled me over and ordered me out of the car. I was 19, naive, and barefoot. When I made a move to get my shoes, the cop became aggressive. He manhandled me because he supposedly thought I was grabbing for a weapon. I’m lucky he didn’t shoot me. There I was, face down on the ground, knee in my back. In June, I was reminded of what happened to me when I watched video of a police officer named Eric Casebolt grabbing a 15-year-old girl outside the Craig Ranch North Community Pool in Texas, slamming her body to the ground, and putting his knee in her back. Three years later—in 1991—I would experience something similar, only this time I was on my back and the knee was in my chest. That knee did not belong to a police officer, but Andre Young, the producer/rapper who goes by Dr. Dre.”

New York Daily News:

Los Angeles Times:

How Worried Should You Be About the Zika Virus?

“Zika, the virus suspected to cause brain defects in Brazilian babies, may start showing up in the southern United States this summer. It’s already a concern for travelers, and the World Health Organization considers the epidemic a global emergency. Don’t freak out, but do stock up on bug spray.”

Hacked Emails Show Hillary Clinton Was Receiving Advice at a Private Email Account From Banned, Obama-Hating Former Staffer

“As the Smoking Gun and others have reported, a hacker calling himself (or herself) ‘Guccifer’ claims to have compromised the email account of former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal, revealing memos that Blumenthal purportedly wrote to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about Benghazi and other matters. What seems to have escaped notice is that Blumenthal, a fierce Clinton partisan in the 1990s, was the orchestrator of a subterranean smear campaign against Obama during the Democratic primary and was specifically spiked by the White House as a potential staffer for Clinton when she became Secretary of State. And he was sending notes to Clinton at a private, non-governmental email address. Did Obama know Clinton was consulting with the guy who tried to kneecap him?”

The Washington Post:

Columbia Journalism Review:

New York magazine:

Source: Top Clinton Aides Used Secret Email Accounts at State Dept.

“This is the bigger story, because it demonstrates aforethought and a conscious decision to evade public detection.” — John Podhoretz, Commentary Magazine

“Gawker also FOIAed top Clinton aide Reines’ communications with reporters, only to be told they didn’t exist.” — Byron Tau, The Wall Street Journal

Leaked Private Emails Reveal Ex-Clinton Aide’s Secret Spy Network

“Starting weeks before Islamic militants attacked the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, longtime Clinton family confidante Sidney Blumenthal supplied intelligence to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gathered by a secret network that included a former CIA clandestine service officer, according to hacked emails from Blumenthal’s account.”

Wall Street Journal:

Slate:

“Few journalists are more thoroughly connected to Washington’s power elite than Politico’s Chief White House correspondent Mike Allen. But as newly released emails between the veteran reporter and a former State Department official show, Allen’s coveted access sometimes comes at the cost of his own credibility—as well as Politico’s reputation as an adversarial news outlet.”

“Mike Allen is just *incredibly* corrupt” — Ryan Cooper, The Week

Slate:

The Washington Post:

Newsweek:

“Most people in Washington attribute the success of Politico’s marquee morning newsletter, Playbook, to the superhuman work ethic of its main author and Politico’s Chief White House correspondent, Mike Allen. According to several 2010 emails recently obtained by Gawker, however, Allen has employed one unusual productivity trick: letting someone he covers ghostwrite an item for him.”

“Daily Beast reporters: If you agree to terms like these, don’t bother coming to work the next day. Or ever.” — Noah Shachtman, The Daily Beast

The New York Times:

The Washington Post:

The Washington Post:

The New York Post:

The New Republic:

Inside Superstar Machine, Which Ex-Members Say Is a Cult Preying on New York’s Creative Women

“A few years ago, as Ashley Cantley will tell you plainly, she was in a pretty bad place. She was unemployed, her relationship with her boyfriend was strained, and she had no one to turn to for advice.”

Roger Ailes’ Secret Nixon-Era Blueprint for Fox News

“Republican media strategist Roger Ailes launched Fox News Channel in 1996, ostensibly as a ‘fair and balanced’ counterpoint to what he regarded as the liberal establishment media. But according to a remarkable document buried deep within the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, the intellectual forerunner for Fox News was a nakedly partisan 1970 plot by Ailes and other Nixon aides to circumvent the ‘prejudices of network news’ and deliver ‘pro-administration’ stories to heartland television viewers.”

“The documents are a fascinating look in the construction of image building. Even back then, Ailes had his signature impassioned style, writing that they were responsible for the life or death of America.” — The Washington Post

“Gawker’s John Cook has unearthed a juicy White House memo—‘A Plan for Putting the GOP on TV News’—that shows Roger Ailes and fellow aides to Richard Nixon plotting to disseminate Republican propaganda to local news outlets nationwide.” — Rolling Stone

“Gawker’s John Cook makes the case the Ailes’s ‘fair and balanced’ network comes from the same skeazy political scheming that lead to the Watergate scandal.” — The Atlantic Wire

“Roger Ailes’ ‘fair and balanced’ alternative to what he calls the liberal bias of other news outlets was far from an overnight success. In fact, according to documents obtained by Gawker, his idea for a conservative news source was conceived in 1970, when Ailes worked as a media consultant for then-President Richard Nixon.” — The Week

Every Time Travel Movie Ever, Ranked

“With the release of yet another time travel movie this week (Terminator Genisys), it’s time for us to look back at the great time travel movies of our past. Here are all the major time travel movies ever, ranked.”

The Horrible World of Video Game Crunch

“In February of 2011, fresh off nine months of 80-hour work weeks, Jessica Chavez took a pair of scissors to her hair. She’d been working so hard on a video game—14 hours a day, six days a week—that she hadn’t even had a spare hour to go to the barber.”

The Pizza Party Where Everyone Got Fired

“Yesterday, the game development studio Daybreak went through massive layoffs, culling a large number of jobs in order to stay “profitable.” That’s just business as usual in the video game industry, where it seems like there’s a new round of layoffs every single week.”

What Is Safe Sex? The Raw and Uncomfortable Truth About Truvada

When I’m single, I don’t bareback on purpose usually. I practice safe sex often enough to consider myself ‘always safe,’ even though that’s not quite true. While the overwhelming majority of times that I’ve had casual anal sex, I’ve had the wherewithal and self control to stop and put on the condom I’ve already made sure is within my reach, there have been times when pre-sex teasing has led to penetration. I’ve slipped. There are times when a few condom-free strokes don’t seem like they’d hurt anyone and we were both down so… I’ve given in to requests of full-on bare sex to orgasm on occasion, depending how hot and convincing the invitation was and how turned on I already was. It’s always the exception, though. ‘That’s not me,’ I tell myself during and especially after.

I’m Marc Maron, and This Is How I Work

“By any measure Marc Maron has had a banner year. The comedian talked with President Obama on his podcast, his television show on IFC completed it’s third season and was renewed for another, and he has a new standup special premiering in just a few days. Must feel good, right? It is perhaps unsurprising that there’s no complacency in it for Marc; he tells us he’s grateful but the work begets more work and there’s no time to sit back and relax. It’s well-deserved success, with a career in comedy and radio that has spanned multiple decades of hard work. With that in mind, we spoke with Marc to learn a little about how he manages his multiple projects without burning out.”

I’m Mike Rowe, Host of Somebody’s Gotta Do It, and This Is How I Work

“For years Mike Rowe has been traveling across the country to meet people whose laborious, often thankless work keeps the world moving forward. And across different shows and different television networks, what has remained consistent is Mike’s sincere curiosity and willingness to learn. Mike is currently the host of Somebody’s Gotta Do It on CNN, which focuses less on the dirty and more on the unexpected, surprising jobs—from repopulating oysters in Chesapeake Bay to running monster truck rallies—that require unique, passionate individuals. We had a conversation with Mike to learn how he goes about his own work of exploring, in his own words, ‘real people who do real things.’”

I’m Astronaut Ron Garan, and This Is How I Work

Perhaps the challenges facing the Earth become more clear from a distance. Such is the experience of Col. Ron Garan, an astronaut, veteran fighter pilot, and social entrepreneur who advocates international cooperation and empathy to help us address the problems of the world.

“It’s time for the big reveal for our unretouched cover-image contest, and, well, our winner is the July cover of Redbook, on which country singer Faith Hill (and, on a separate cover, her hubby Tim McGraw) appeared as beautiful and accessible-seeming as usual. What’s uncanny about this cover is that when the image was passed our way, we had just been flipping through Redbook, reminding ourselves that we’d stop hating women’s magazines as soon as our lives became shitty enough to warrant reading Redbook and our husbands and immune systems suddenly replaced celebrities and consumerism on our personal Most Toxic lists, when we paused to think, “Wow, Faith Hill is really hot.” We’d had this thought before about Faith Hill, probably in the context of a Revlon display at the CVS or something, but reading this spread in the JulyRedbook we had one of those moments we often have with Katie Holmes wherein we were like, “Wow. She is just really really really pretty. Although we don’t much like her taste in men.” Anyway, after the jump, we present the before and after of Faith Hill, Redbook magazine, July 2007.”

ABC News:

TMZ:

Photoshop Horrors Hall of Shame, 2000-2009

“Slimmed thighs, whittled waists, smoothed skin: Digitally altered women were de rigueur in the 00s. There were many, many Photoshop Of Horrors images to choose from, but these are the 15 most egregious examples of image retouching in this decade.”

Glamour:

Los Angeles Times:

Why You Must See Unretouched Images, And Why You Must See Them Repeatedly

“There’s a reason we’re fighting to keep this unretouched image of Aniston on our website. And it’s not just because we like her freckles.”

Connie Schultz, Creators Syndicate:

Over 4,000 BuzzFeed Posts Have Completely Disappeared

“You may have heard that BuzzFeed recently landed $50 million in venture capital, with which it hopes to transcend its long-time status as a “content laboratory” for shareable listicles, strange quizzes and LOL-worthy videos. Earlier this year, however, the viral news website went with a much cheaper strategy: Permanently erasing thousands of specious, staff-written posts.”

Politico:

Slate:

Poynter:

BuzzFeed Editor Caught Lifting Text From Yahoo! Answers

Politico:

Poynter:

CNN:

BuzzFeed Deletes Post Critical of Dove, a BuzzFeed Advertiser

“Wednesday afternoon, BuzzFeed published a post by staff writer Arabelle Sicardi that openly criticized a bizarre advertising campaign by Dove. (A sample passage: ‘The soap manufacturer wants to tell us how we feel about ourselves. And then fix it for us. With soap.’) Thursday morning, however, BuzzFeed deleted the entire post and replaced it with a single sentence: ‘We pulled this post because it is not consistent with the tone of BuzzFeed Life.’”

“This is so bad. If you publish a post, there is NO excuse to pull it. Once it is up, there is no erase button.” — Daniel Roberts, Yahoo! Finance

Adweek:

Columbia Journalism Review:

The New York Times:

BuzzFeed Deleted Posts Under Pressure from Its Own Business Department

The New York Times:

The Wall Street Journal:

CNN:

Unmasking Reddit’s Violentacrez, The Biggest Troll on the Web

“Last Wednesday afternoon I called Michael Brutsch. He was at the office of the Texas financial services company where he works as a programmer and he was having a bad day. I had just told him, on Gchat, that I had uncovered his identity as the notorious internet troll Violentacrez (pronounced Violent-Acres).”

Days later…

CNN:

The Underground Website Where You Can Buy Any Drug Imaginable

“Making small talk with your pot dealer sucks. Buying cocaine can get you shot. What if you could buy and sell drugs online like books or light bulbs? Now you can: Welcome to Silk Road.”

Now You Can Buy Guns on the Online Underground Marketplace

Are Authorities Closing In On the Online Drug Market Silk Road?

The Atlantic:

Two weeks later…

NPR:

One month later…

Four years later…

New York Times:

How Kevin Johnson Destroyed A Black Mayors Group To Promote His Brand

“The African American Mayors Association, led by Kevin Johnson, opens its annual meeting today in Washington, D.C. The former NBA star and current mayor of Sacramento has been the president of the association since its founding in 2013—when, as president of the Atlanta-based National Conference of Black Mayors, he declared the older group bankrupt and resigned from it.”

Who’s Funding Kevin Johnson’s Secret Government?

“I’m A Grown-Up Now”: The Teen Who Accused Kevin Johnson Of Sexual Abuse Speaks Out

“There is a photograph of a pile of pink and white paper hearts atop Mandi Koba’s Facebook page. She cut the hearts out of hard copies of a 1996 police report from Phoenix, Ariz. The cops, according to the vintage report used in the arts and crafts project, were investigating ‘a celebrity involved in a reported child molestation.’”

Days later…

Yahoo! News:

The New York Times:

Slate:

An Investigation: Which Presidential Campaigns Have the Largest Gender Wage Disparities?

“A Jezebel analysis of campaign finance data has found that of the six active presidential campaigns, four have significant gender wage disparities. Most notably, Ted Cruz’s campaign on average pays male staffers $20,000 more than female staffers, and of the ten highest paid staffers on Bernie Sanders’ campaign, not a single one is a woman.”

Marie Claire:

New York Magazine:

How to Build a Raspberry Pi Retro Game Console for $35

“Since its release, the $35 Raspberry Pi mini-computer has been hailed as the perfect all-in-one retro game console. Now, it’s easier to do than ever, and it doesn’t take any Linux knowledge whatsoever. Here’s how to make your own retro game console in under 10 minutes.”

America Is Not For Black People

Photo via Getty“The United States of America is not for black people. We know this, and then we put it out of our minds, and then something happens to remind us. Saturday, in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Mo., something like that happened: An unarmed 18-year-old black man was executed by police in broad daylight.”

This Is the Interview About His Ancestor Ben Affleck Tried to Suppress

“Ben Affleck really didn’t want people to know that one of his distant ancestors owned slaves—going so far as to lobby celebrity genealogy TV show Finding Your Roots to suppress the segment in which that ancestor is discussed. But we got our hands on a copy of the script—and now you can read the mild interview that terrified the actor.”

The Daily Beast:

Here’s How New Texas Public School Textbooks Talk About Slavery

“In 2010, the Texas Board of Education approved a revised social studies curriculum that, wrote The New York Times that year, would ‘put a conservative stamp on history’ once going into effect in 2015. In advance of their debut in Texas classrooms last week, it was widely reported that the new textbooks, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Pearson, ‘whitewashed’ slavery by downplaying the brutality of the facts and treating it as a ‘side issue.’”

The New York Times:

Is Shop Jeen’s Viral Success Story All Window Dressing?

“For a certain type of internet-fluent teenager, Shop Jeen is an unsurpassedmecca of cool. The retailer’s homepage looks as if a sex-crazed Hello Kitty threw up after drinking 1,000 jello shots, selling things like “Turnt Jesus” iPhone cases, “University of Bad Bitches” sweatshirts and T-shirts screaming “Ask Your Boyfriend How My Ass Taste.” It’s irreverent and exceptionally topical, a store for young women who don’t buy clothes as much as they buy costumes. But it is also, by many accounts, a black hole of dysfunction: money goes in, but very little comes out.”

Eight months later….

Buzzfeed:

“Brett Favre Once Sent Me Cock Shots”: Not a Love Story

“Here’s another reason Brett Favre should stay retired this time: Turns out The Daily Line’s Jenn Sterger has kept a ridiculously disturbing (but HILARIOUS) secret about her interactions with The Gunslinger while they were both part of the Jets organization.”

Deadspin’s decision to publish what were said to be photographs of Brett Favre’s penis has become easy shorthand for reckless and invasive journalism. As Vanity Fair wrote, in a feature on Manti Te’o, “Deadspin itself sometimes seems devoid of any standards of taste or ethics—it has practiced checkbook journalism and has published alleged ‘dong shots’ Brett Favre reportedly texted to a woman.”

That account, though, skips over the fact that the penis photos were sent unsolicited, in an act of alleged workplace harassment of a New York Jets employee, and that the news of Favre’s behavior led other employees to speak up, and eventually file suit, accusing the NFL legend of persistent and aggressive misbehavior.

Good Morning America:

In the wake of a sex scandal that tarnished Brett Favre’s storied 20-year NFL career and cost him a $50,000 fine, two more women have come forward, filing a sexual harassment suit against the star quarterback.

Christina Scavo and Shannon O’Toole, both former massage therapists for the New York Jets, filed suit against Favre, the New York Jets and Lisa Ripi, a woman who hires massage therapists for the team, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York today.

New York Times:

Dead Monster Washes Ashore in Montauk

“No, Lizzie Grubman’s still alive. This is an actual monster, some sort of rodent-like creature with a dinosaur beak. A tipster says that there is “a government animal testing facility very close by in Long Island,” but unless the government is trying to design horrible Montauk monsters that will eat IEDs and fart fire at bad Iraqis, we’re not sure why they would create such an unthinkable beast. Our guess is that it’s viral marketing for something. Ali Lohan’s new album perhaps. Click thru for larger dino-damage.”

Who Wants to Remember Bill Cosby’s Multiple Sex Assault Accusations?

“The thing about Dylan Farrow’s open letter accusing her father, Woody Allen, of sexual abuse is: There was not much really new about it. It was new that Dylan Farrow herself was signing her name to the accusations, but Vanity Fair hadcovered the case, in grim detail, more than two decades ago.”

Newsweek:

Newsweek:

The Wrap:

BuzzFeed:

Eight months later...

Hannibal Buress Called Bill Cosby a Rapist During a Stand-up Set

Nine months later...

New York Magazine:

Five months later...

New York Times:

Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend, The Most Heartbreaking And Inspirational Story Of The College Football Season, Is A Hoax

“Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o, the stories said, played this season under a terrible burden. A Mormon linebacker who led his Catholic school’s football program back to glory, Te’o was whipsawed between personal tragedies along the way. In the span of six hours in September, as Sports Illustrated told it, Te’o learned first of the death of his grandmother, Annette Santiago, and then of the death of his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua.”

ESPN:

The New York Times:

SBNation:

NPR:

CNN:

Poynter:

Fast Company:

The Daily Dot:

The Natural: The Trouble Portraying Blackness in Video Games

“Every morning, I run a pick through my hair. It’s important that I do this when it’s still spongy and damp from the shower. Wait too long and my hair gets drier and less cooperative, making it harder to pull the comb through my natural. (Pro tip: A natural is something black folks sometimes call hair that hasn’t been altered or straightened by heat or chemicals.)“

GQ New Zealand:

Is This the End of the Era of the Important, Inappropriate Literary Man?

“In public, everyone says that Thomas Sayers Ellis, 52, formerly of Case Western and Sarah Lawrence, a visiting professor at the Iowa Writers Workshop this semester, is brilliant. Even the people who find him off-putting and unprofessional tend to agree. He’s charismatic and surprising, a protest poet, a real intellectual, unafraid to cause alarm. His style is enjambed, urgent, andrhythmically afire; in the late ‘80s, he founded the Dark Room Collective to promote writers of color, and he’s been known as an activist ever since. He attracts women; several women I talked to said he had “groupies.” But in late February, a group of women came together to say that he’s abusive, that he preys.”

Ebony:

Slate:

Newsweek:

New York Magazine:

Sporting News:

A Price of Games Journalism

“For the past two years, Kotaku has been blacklisted by Bethesda, the publisher of the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series. For the past year, we have also been, to a lesser degree, ostracized by Ubisoft, publisher of Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and more.”

MSNBC:

The Awl:

How Unauthorized Is the New Book About Harper Lee?

Be Suspicious of the New Harper Lee Novel

Paste:

International Business Times:

BBC:

BuzzFeed:

New Orleans Times-Picayune:

This Is Why NFL Star Greg Hardy Was Arrested For Assaulting His Ex-Girlfriend

“Barefoot and frightened, Nicole Holder walked as fast as she could through the darkness, and the moment she saw the cops she ran. She headed west on Fifth Street toward North Church, away from the Charlotte., N.C., apartment of Greg Hardy, a star defensive end then with the NFL’s Carolina Panthers. Minutes earlier he had, she said, thrown her against a tile bathtub wall, tossed her on a futon covered in assault rifles, and choked her until she told him to ‘kill me so I don’t have to.’”

Yahoo! Sports:

CNN:

USA Today:

Three months later…

CBS Sports:

Donating to Wyclef Jean’s Charity Might Not Be the Best Way to Help Haitians Right Now

“Wyclef Jean has become the face of the Haitian disaster. He’s there now pulling bodies out of rubble. But more indications are emerging that his charity, Yele Haiti, is not the best place for your money to go right now.”

NBC News:

Huffington Post:

Three years later…

New York Daily News:

This Is the Video CNN Will Play When the World Ends

“Thirty-four years ago, at the launch of Ted Turner’s Cable News Network, the founder made a grandiose and specific promise about his newly created round-the-clock operation. “Barring satellite problems, we won’t be signing off until the world ends,” Turner declared. And in anticipation, he prepared a final video segment for the apocalypse:”

The Guardian:

Married GOP Congressman Sent Sexy Pictures to Craigslist Babe

“Rep. Christopher Lee is a married Republican congressman serving the 26th District of New York. But when he trolls Craigslist’s “Women Seeking Men” forum, he’s Christopher Lee, “divorced” “lobbyist” and “fit fun classy guy.” One object of his flirtation told us her story.”

NBC News:

ABC News:

CBS News:

Fox News:

CNN:

A Letter From Ray Jasper, Who Is About to Be Executed

“Texas death row inmate Ray Jasper is scheduled to be put to death on March 19. He has written us a letter that, he acknowledges, “could be my final statement on earth.” It is well worth your time.”

International Business Times:

Huffington Post:

RT:

Identify This Car Part And Help Catch A Killer

“Betty Wheeler was killed last Saturday when a driver in an unknown vehicle struck her as she walked near Route 340 in Waynesboro, Virginia. Police say the driver fled the scene but left this part behind.”

CNET:

Does This Video Prove That Police Arrested The Wrong Speeding Driver?

“A driver in the Detroit area had an extremely close call on Friday as a black Dodge Challenger raced past him on the right side in excess of 100 mph. He caught the incident on his dash cam video. The police made an arrest, but the car they nabbed wasn’t the car that passed him. Do police in Allen Park, Michigan have the wrong man?”

Detroit Free Press:

How The Feds’ $8 Million Roadblocks Secretly Tested Drivers For Booze

“If you were driving home and a cop ordered you to park somewhere, and then someone from the government asked for your saliva or blood while secretly testing you for alcohol use, would you feel like your rights were violated? Many Americans did when it happened to them, according to documents from a Freedom of Information Act request by Jalopnik and a closer look at the program’s methods.”

Big Breaks for Blowjobs: The Dark Underbelly of the Miss USA Pageant

“Ashleigh Blake never dreamed of becoming a beauty queen. The 21-year-old amateur model and part-time tutor fantasized about being a movie star or the next Glee triple threat, and posted her resume on the casting networking site GotCast in hopes that Hollywood might call. But when a recruitment associate for Miss California USA, the splashiest state franchise in Donald Trump’s Miss Universe pageant ecosystem, sent Ashleigh a message in November 2012 expressing interest in scheduling a meeting, she responded right away. ‘I didn’t expect them to pick me in a million years,’ Ashleigh said. ‘When they did, I thought it was the start of my dreams coming true.’”

On Smarm

“Last month, Isaac Fitzgerald, the newly hired editor of BuzzFeed’s newly created books section, made a remarkable but not entirely surprising announcement: He was not interested in publishing negative book reviews. In place of “the scathing takedown rip,” Fitzgerald said, he desired to promote a positive community experience.”

The New Yorker:

Maureen Dowd, the New York Times:

Is Donald Trump’s Hair a $60,000 Weave? A Gawker Investigation

“Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has generated an unceasing torrent of press attention that some estimate to be worth roughly $2 billion. Yet the central mystery at the very core of his persona—his inscrutable hairdo—has somehow, impossibly, remained unsolved. Until, perhaps, now.”

The Hateful Life And Spiteful Death Of The Man Who Was Vigo The Carpathian

“You’ve seen a painting of Norbert Grupe. A heavy, creased brow and shoulder-length hair framing a frightening scowl, the massive work hung in the fictional Manhattan Museum of Art in Ghostbusters II. When the medieval sorcerer pictured within the painting begins to physically manifest, it is on the Ghostbusters to rally the city’s positive emotions and trap him back in the painting forever. Most people will only ever know Norbert Grupe as Vigo the Carpathian. But Norbert Grupe—a Nazi soldier’s son, boxer, professional wrestler, failed actor, criminal, and miserable human being who was never so happy as when he could make someone hate him—was once a man so beautiful that other men wanted to paint him.”

The Zimmerman Jury Told Young Black Men What We Already Knew

“Tonight a Florida man’s acquittal for hunting and killing a black teenager who was armed with only a bag of candy serves as a Rorschach test for the American public. For conservatives, it’s a triumph of permissive gun laws and a victory over the liberal media, which had been unfairly rooting for the dead kid all along. For liberals, it’s a tragic and glaring example of the gaps that plague our criminal justice system. For people of color, it’s a vivid reminder that we must always be deferential to white people, or face the very real chance of getting killed.”

Exclusive: I Helped Richard Heene Plan a Balloon Hoax

“For the first time, 25-year-old researcher Robert Thomas reveals to Gawker how earlier this year he and Richard Heene drew up a master plan to generate a massive media controversy using a weather balloon. To get famous, of course.”

USA Today:

She Was Harassed By A Games Reporter. Now She’s Speaking Out.

“Alice Mercier isn’t the real name of the games industry veteran that reporter Josh Mattingly harassed on Facebook. She isn’t willing to give her real name, at least not publicly; she’s afraid of the professional repercussions. This is a theme that will come up again and again over the course of our interview, and every subsequent conversation: weighing the toll of harassment against the cost of confronting it.”

No Offense

“It’s strange to edit a feminist website when almost nothing offends you, because the feminist website is traditionally imagined to run on offense.”

Gravy Boat: My Week on the High Seas With Paula Deen and Friends

“She hates looking at veins.”

Here’s What Happens When You Try and Track Down a Ted Cruz College Rumor

“Is there anything people wouldn’t believe about Ted Cruz? A few months ago, someone sent Jezebel a tip about the rising Republican presidential candidate’s days as a Princeton undergraduate. It was a story that seemed both unlikely and physiologically improbable, but I figured I might as well ask around, just in case.”

Woody Allen Is Not a Monster. He Is a Person. Like My Father.

“Last week, an impassioned letter from a sexual abuse survivor surfaced online. Its author had been at the center a scandal that attracted national media attention. The letter’s vulnerability, and its bravery, gave me chills.”

“‘Slim by Chocolate!’ the headlines blared. A team of German researchers had found that people on a low-carb diet lost weight 10 percent faster if they ate a chocolate bar every day. It made the front page of Bild, Europe’s largest daily newspaper, just beneath their update about the Germanwings crash. From there, it ricocheted around the internet and beyond, making news in more than 20 countries and half a dozen languages. It was discussed on television news shows. It appeared in glossy print, most recently in the June issue of Shapemagazine (‘Why You Must Eat Chocolate Daily,’ page 128). Not only does chocolate accelerate weight loss, the study found, but it leads to healthier cholesterol levels and overall increased well-being. The Bild story quotes the study’s lead author, Johannes Bohannon, Ph.D., research director of the Institute of Diet and Health: ‘The best part is you can buy chocolate everywhere.’”